


Now Kiss

by PunkPinkPower



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers Samurai
Genre: A Sticky Situation, A Wild Plot Appears, Emily and Antonio are secret BFFs, Episode Tag, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Frottage, It's just porn guys, M/M, Morning Sex, Porn With Plot, Secret Relationship, What Have I Done, i don't even, porn porn porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-16 15:53:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/541219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkPinkPower/pseuds/PunkPinkPower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike and Kevin try to figure out how to work together during and in the aftermath of “A Sticky Situation”.  What they discover leaves the team with some internal work to do.</p><p>… Or, “The porn we all secretly wanted from that episode”.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And We Don't Talk About It

**Author's Note:**

> I have done something terrible. But I hope you love it. This also assumes that they were stuck together a little bit longer than the show leads us to believe (two days instead of one, breaking after they attempt to train), but just go with it. Time in Power Rangers is heavily debatable at the best of times.  
> Also, unbeta'd.

Nobody even makes jokes that night after training, when Emily has to help both Kevin and Mike eat dinner--they’d already spilled one bowl of the stir-fry, and Jayden had issued the executive order that it was be fed or starve--when Ji orders them all to bed and Kevin and Mike are left staring at each other evenly as the others file out. 

“My room,” Kevin orders with a slight narrow of his eyes. 

Mike wants to fight him on principle, even though he knows they are supposed to be working together, because why can’t Kevin just let him have one thing? Mike was even going to offer they head that way, but now. Well, Kevin wants a fight, so Mike is going to give it to him. He opens his mouth, but before he even gets a word out Kevin drops his head with a heavy sigh. 

“Look,” he starts, not looking at Mike. “It’s been a really long day. I just want to sleep in my own bed. Can we just not argue about it?” 

And okay, Mike is tired too. He still doesn’t think it gives Kevin the right to order him around without even asking, and he is still a little indignant, but he drops it and nods his head. “Yeah, alright.” 

Getting to bed proves to be another difficulty entirely. Mike really wants to get into some PJ’s, and Kevin is used to sleeping shirtless, but there is absolutely no way to get their shirts off, unless they wanted them wrapped around their wrists all night. They are able to negotiate getting their pants off, and Kevin slips on this pair of really fuzzy pajama pants that look like something out of snuggie catalogue. Mike really wants to tease him about them, but it looks like Kevin is just at breaking point, and Mike doesn’t really want to fight again, so he keeps quiet. 

Even when he is taking his own jeans off and Kevin’s hand accidentally brushes something it definitely shouldn’t have. 

That’s the thing about sharing a bed though, they realize quickly. There is no way to lie down that isn’t absurd or uncomfortable and partially dignified. It isn’t like they can just comfortably spoon and not talk about it later, because they are joined _facing each other_. They try lying on their sides with their hands between them, but Kevin wants to put his hand under his pillow, and that makes Mikes arm twist under in a strange way. Their other hands start to go to sleep laying straight down between them, and as it turns out Kevin is particularly moody about Mike breathing in his face. 

“I breathe through my mouth when I sleep,” Mike grits out, annoyed. “Normal people do. Deal.” 

“You didn’t even brush your teeth,” Kevin says quietly, but his eyes are closed like he’s trying not to get any angrier than necessary. 

“Neither did you!” Mike objects, and he yanks their hands out from under Kevin’s pillow. “And we ate the same thing! Our breath smells exactly the same right now.” 

“That’s scientifically impossible,” Kevin sighs, and he looks like he’s going red in the face. He doesn’t elaborate further. “How would you like it if I sat here and breathed my _stanky breath_ in your face all night?” And with that he opens his mouth and purposefully breaths on Mike’s face. 

In retaliation, Mike breaths back at him, harder, until their just huffing at each other angrily. After a few minutes it stops, and they both look totally infuriated with each other again, but then Mike just sighs and turns his head away. Because really. He’s the childish one around here. Sure. 

They try a few more times in silence to get comfortable, and then Kevin rolls over onto his back in frustration and totally drags Mike with him. 

“Kevin,” Mike starts, but Kevin snaps at him again. 

“I’m sleeping on my back. You are welcome to arrange yourself however you think you can sleep, and no more talking.” And Kevin shuts off. Like he can just will himself to sleep to stop dealing with the annoyance. 

“Kevin, come on.” Mike tries, but he doesn’t get a response. He tries a few more times, and even lifts one of their joined arms but its just dead weight. 

Which is how Mike finds himself going to sleep half draped over Kevin, his face buried in Kevin’s neck. The only way he lulls himself to sleep is with thought of the terrible, horrible ways he is going to destroy that monster in the morning. 

He wakes up once or twice, once when Kevin is squirming underneath him and sweating, and Mike makes a slurred, sleeping remark about his fuzzy pants, which Kevin then attempts to wiggle out of. Mike is too dazed to even really care, but he kicks the covers off of Kevin to at least pretend like he’s helping. He wakes up again when Kevin is nudging him with his shoulder impatiently. 

“Wha?” Mike demands. 

“You are drooling all over my shoulder.” Kevin says, and sure enough Mike picks his head up off of Kevin and there is a line of spit going from his mouth to the wet puddle on Kevin’s bared shoulder. 

Mike smiles dopily, because things are always funnier when one is half asleep, but Kevin doesn’t look really amused. “Sorry, dude,” and they attempt to wipe it off with their joined hands and Kevin’s disheveled shirt, which sort of maybe makes it more messy, and Kevin eventually uses his pillow case corner to create a barrier between where Mike’s mouth is and his skin, and Mike just laughs stupidly as he sinks back down and goes right back to sleep. 

The third time he wakes up, its morning. He can tell because there is just barely a stream of light coming through Kevin’s eastward facing window, and he wonders what time an anal-retentive guy like Kevin sets his alarm for. It’s probably something ridiculous, like 5:37, or something. People like Kevin are eccentric in their own ways, and not setting his alarm for a regular interval? Totally something Mike wouldn’t put past Kevin. 

He’s sleepily contemplating if he can go back to sleep when he shifts his knee a little bit and there is a strangled noise that comes out of the throat next to his face. 

And Mike knows exactly why. His cheeks start to burn when he realizes first that his knee is pressed against Kevin’s crotch, then that Kevin is hard and then, with horror, that his own morning erection is pinned against Kevin’s stomach, hard and impossible not to notice between them. 

His instinct is to flee. He wants to jump out of the bed and scramble away and make a really lame joke that Kevin will absolutely not laugh at and then never speak to him again, but his body just isn’t reacting. Maybe it knows that he can’t get more than two feet away from Kevin, so it’s keeping him still in self preservation. He’s in total fight or flight mode right now, and he can feel his heart pounding in his chest, but he isn’t doing anything. He’s just frozen to the spot, trying to keep his breathing from becoming increasingly panicked. 

Oh god, is there any way he can pretend to still be asleep and will his erection away? Only he knows that Kevin is awake, and there is no way that this close to him that Kevin doesn’t know that Mike is awake. The way he sees it, they only really have a few options. They can attempt to play it off and both get up and not look at each other, or they can just stay like this until the problem sorts itself out. 

Yeah, that sounds plausible. They’ll just stay like this, ignoring it, forever. They can totally do that. 

He’s never going to be able to look Kevin in the face again. 

He scrunches his eyes shut, and focuses on his breathing. He wants to move his knee away, but any movement will signal that their silent truce of keeping perfectly still and not acknowledging the situation is over, so he doesn’t. He just keeps it there, pressed firmly against Kevin’s ridiculously hot junk, and he tries not to think about Kevin’s junk because really that’s the last thing he needs ever. 

It goes on for about two minutes, and when Mike opens his eyes, he sees a vein in Kevin’s neck twitching itself wild. Like the guy might have an aneurism from the stress, and wow, Mike thinks that actually kind of possible. And then what does he tell the team, is Kevin up and dies on him and he’s stuck with a dead body to lull around with him. 

So he makes a decision. He lifts his head ever so slightly, just enough to gage the reaction on Kevin’s face without making eye contact. Kevin’s brow is furrowed and he’s sweating and he looks totally constipated and it would be enough to make Mike laugh in any other situation. 

He doesn’t, not now, obviously. But he’s totally frozen again, looking at Kevin’s face, and it’s absolutely not his fault when his dick twitches. 

Kevin’s eyes snap to him at once, like Mike has broken the sacred tribune of bro-hood by acknowledging their massive erections and the fact that they are stuck together and stupidly close and both incredibly well built for this sort of thing. 

Mike tries to move, tries to get enough of their hands under him that he can push himself off and is bracing himself for the awkward when his knee accidentally presses further into Kevin, and Kevin throws his head back and that vein is going crazy again. 

Mike can’t help it. He drops, goes totally slack against Kevin’s body again, because that was obviously the wrong thing to do and he is not going to make it worse by continuing to flail. His face is pressed into Kevin’s neck, and he can actually feel Kevin’s breathing and it’s really weirdly hot and Jesus he did not just think that. 

Mike sucks in a breath. “Sorry,” he mumbles, because it’s too late to go back now. “Just--here.” He takes their hands that are under him and tries to push himself up again, but Kevin actually writhes beneath him, pressing his stomach up into Mike and, well. 

Mike shudders and grinds down into Kevin’s stomach, because it’s what his body wants to do, and he obviously doesn’t have Kevin’s self restraint. 

The movement seems to jostle Kevin into action, and his hand flails beneath them, yanking Mike back down so that his forehead is pressed into Kevin’s collarbone. It was probably not the desired intent of the action, but it sure works for Mike as his length is worked down Kevin’s rock hard abs again. 

“ _Mike_ ,” Kevin grits out between clenched teeth, and there are all the usual things there in Kevin’s voice when he says Mike’s name--annoyance, and irritation, and _get off me_ , and _but dammit you’re stupid_ \--but there is something else there. Something else that makes Mike grind his knee up into Kevin without even thinking about it, and it chokes Kevin off. 

Kevin bucks up into the movement, and that’s it. Mike just goes with it, and he moves down a little bit to press them together, and Kevin whimpers, and _god_ there is nothing they can do with their hands. 

Mike lifts their limps up over their heads, and works his way on top of Kevin a little better, and the friction both of those actions creates is sweet and hot and maybe a tad painful but so worth it. He starts mouthing at Kevin’s neck when they grind into each other again, because he needs something to do with his mouth that isn’t mouth off with all the things running through his head, and he doesn’t need to be looking at that stupid look on Kevin’s face right now because it’s one thing to totally be getting off on each other, and entirely another to find that face surprisingly hot. 

Their pace shifts, and then Kevin is dragging one of their joined hands down and Mike is red in the face at what he thinks Kevin is going to do, but instead he’s just rucking their shirts up between them, getting them away from the inevitable mess they are totally going to make, and Mike actually sort of smiles into Kevin’s neck because even during sex, Kevin is totally reliable and practical. It’s amusing in the same way it’s depressing. 

It’s Kevin turning his head down towards Mike’s face that Mike doesn’t expect at all, and Kevin pressing his tongue into Mike’s mouth that actually makes him falter for a moment. It’s not really kissing, in the same way that this is not really sex, because there’s fabric and it’s more like mutual masturbation than anything, and their mouths being pressed together and sort of not working together at all is not kissing. It’s just messy, but it’s also kind of awesome, and Mike really wishes he had a hand to make Kevin’s face stay still for a moment instead of turning from side to side with uncontrollable force. 

Kevin breaks first, and his back arches, and he mumbles something that sounds sort of like dirty talk as something wet starts to soak through his boxers and onto his stomach. The moisture makes Mike go harder, and he wishes they didn’t have underwear on because that slickness would feel so good right now, but there’s nothing for it, and so he focuses on Kevin’s face while he tries to finish. 

He tells himself not to feel weird about leaning down to kiss Kevin again when he comes too, rutting into Kevin’s wet mess of boxers and feeling his own slick cum coat himself thoroughly before he collapses on top of Kevin, their breathing both hard and fast and yes, that totally just happened. 

Mike is starting to fall back asleep again when Kevin’s alarm goes off. 

They get up and get dressed without saying a word, and after all that it’s not even awkward to shuck off their soiled underwear and put new ones on before pulling their pants on. He almost sort of wishes Kevin would graze him like he did the night before, but this time Kevin is perfectly careful. 

If nothing else, Mike thinks, they’ve at least proved to themselves that they can work together, when the situation calls for it. He contemplates telling Kevin as much, but there’s this moment when they’re going out the door to join the others when their eyes meet. And no, Mike thinks, this is not something they should be joking about. 

***

If he’s honest, he’s probably a little more aggressive with Mike than he needs to be that day, and they almost fight more trying to take the trash out and fetch the groceries than they had the entire day before. It doesn’t help that every time he looks at Mike’s face he thinks about Mike on top of him, and he has to actually shake the image from his head every time. 

Mike looks at him like he knows, but for once in the whole time Kevin’s known him Mike is blissfully silent. 

Then, all of a sudden, Mike starts compromising. He comes up with the grocery cart idea, which if Kevin is honest is really sort of brilliant. Or course, he insists on being pushed, but that’s just Mike being Mike, and Kevin actually doesn’t mind pushing his 150 pound butt up a hill. It’s a good work out. 

Mike guffaws when he says as much. 

They actually start teasing each other a little bit, too, which feels nice and normal. And not at all awkward. Which is probably why Kevin finally decides to go to the bathroom. Because he’s been holding it since they… finished, this morning, and he really has to go. 

It’s not that he wants Mike’s hands that close to him again. He doesn’t, at all, but there’s nothing for it. He helps Mike get out of the grocery cart, and they go into the bathroom. 

It could be worse, Kevin thinks. He’s just not sure how. Mike stands awkwardly to the side, decidedly not looking as Kevin does the maneuvering. When he finishes, and puts himself away, Mike actually sort of looks disappointed. Kevin has no idea why, but then there’s this thoughtful look on Mike’s face. He looks like he wants to say something, but isn’t sure how. 

“What?” Kevin demands after a moment and Mike looks at him. 

“Are we going to--” He starts slowly, but Kevin cuts him off. 

“No.” He decides. They are not going to talk about it. Not if Kevin can help it. 

“What if we’re stuck together for a really, really long time?” Mike asks, and he’s quiet, a little bit afraid, maybe even a little bit sad. 

“We won’t be,” Kevin says resolutely, and they go back outside to the cart. Mike looks like he is going to try to push, but Kevin just shrugs and helps Mike back into the cart, like it’s the least he can do, like a peace offering. 

It seems to placate Mike, anyway. Until they see the monster again. 

When Mike asks for his “favor”, for Kevin to lower himself to Mike’s level, Kevin can’t help it. He reciprocates. He admits they need Mike’s creativity, and Mike looks the happiest Kevin has ever seen him. Like Kevin’s approval is actually important. And that feels kind of good. 

***

Mia cooks them a victory meal that night, to everyone’s chagrin. Mike and Kevin are the life of the party, making jokes and poking fun, and Kevin even lets Mike feed him some of the food to make Emily and Antonio laugh. 

It’s surprisingly easy to be friends with Kevin. Now that they’ve had their nighlock intervention the whole team seems relieved. Even Jayden is relaxed, occasionally playing into their antics. 

“I’m glad you and Kevin learned to work together so well,” Emily leans over to tell him, when they’re passing a bowl of chips around under the table to substitute for the food on the table. “You make a good team when you’re not at each other’s throats.” 

Mike knows he shouldn’t. He knows what she actually means. But he thinks instead of his mouth at Kevin’s throat, and the little vein in his neck, and he wants to say, “Surprisingly, we also make a good team when at each other’s throats” but he doesn’t. He just nods at her and passes the bowl of chips to Kevin without taking any. 

He excuses himself to bed a little while later, and complains about not sleeping well the night before for effect, but it makes Kevin look a little sick, and he regrets it as soon as he’s alone in his own room. 

He takes a cold shower, because he can still feel some of the grime on himself from that morning. He pads back to his room and throws on his pajama pants, and then just lies on his bed looking at the ceiling. 

This doesn’t get to change him. It just doesn’t. He pretty sure he’s not gay, but he’s also pretty sure than any semblance of virginity he had went with Kevin this morning. And it’s not like he didn’t know what he was doing. He was the one who made the decision to keep going, so it’s probably mostly his fault. He thinks. Maybe. 

Kevin could have pushed him off, though. Was Kevin gay? Kevin seems like the kind of guy who would never even question that sort of stuff, who probably didn’t even touch _himself_ until he was 18. Or hey, maybe Kevin is a major player. How would Mike know? Mike isn’t sure if that would make him feel better or make him feel used. 

He rolls over and muffles a frustrated shout into his pillow, and he’s just about to say screw it and start touching himself while thinking about Kevin, of all people, when there is a barely audible shuffling outside the door. 

He sits up, embarrassed because what if it’s Ji, about to check on him, and he’s pulsing in his pants? 

But the door doesn’t open. No one knocks. Instead, he starts to see something being shoved under the door. Or trying to be shoved under the door, anyway. Whatever it is, it’s too big to fit under the little crack at the bottom. Mike watches for another minute before standing up and going to the door, yanking it open. 

And there’s Kevin. Crouched down and looking very much abused, and he’s… oh god. He’s holding Mike’s underwear. From that morning. His _semen soaked_ underwear. 

Kevin is trying to shove his semen soaked underwear under his door. And he looks incredibly ashamed doing it. 

Mike just looks down at him, completely unsure what to say. And Kevin looks up at him like a guilty kid who has been caught doing something against the rules. And neither of them moves. Just like that morning. 

Finally Mike runs a hand over his face, mumbles “Jesus”, and looks both ways down the hall to make sure no one is observing this before he yanks Kevin to his feet. He hauls Kevin inside his room and shuts the door, because the last thing either of them needs is anyone ever finding out about this. 

Kevin holds out the green boxers to him. “Here,” he says. 

Mike grabs them and tries to scrunch them into a tiny ball in his hands and make them disappear. Then he remembers that the boxers he shucked off before his shower had been Kevin’s, and he goes to retrieve them from his hamper without a word. 

He hands them to Kevin, who repeats the scrunching motion and balls them up into a tight fist. “Thanks,” Kevin says. 

Mike nods. 

And then they stand there. Mike isn’t sure if he should open the door and usher Kevin out, or if Kevin is waiting for him to say something like “it’s okay”. Only they’ve just exchanged underwear and it is definitely not okay. This is not something normal straight guys do. Not like this. 

He’s starting to realize he’s no judge of the words normal or straight when Kevin lets out this pained sigh and fixes Mike with a distraught look. Like he’s going out of his mind trying to make this make sense, and Mike holds up the hand not keeping the underwear scrunched up. 

“I don’t know what to say here.” Mike says, trying to make himself less of a target of Kevin’s kicked puppy look. 

“Nothing,” Kevin shakes his head. “We just… we don’t say anything.” He makes his mouth into a thin line, like he’s making some all important vow, and nods. 

“Okay,” Mike agrees, but when Kevin turns away from him towards the door, Mike is completely not responsible for his arm reaching out to grab Kevin’s. It’s not his fault that he has almost no control as he whips Kevin around and backs him into the door and crushes their mouths together. And it is absolutely not his fault when he feels Kevin’s mouth move against his, because that? That makes Kevin totally complicit in this. 

With his hands finally free, Mike drops that morning dirty underwear and uses his hand instead to get his wish from earlier. He holds Kevin’s damn head in place while he assaults his mouth, and Kevin’s hands are against his chest like he wants to push Mike off of him, but he’s not pushing. If anything, Kevin pushes into him. 

Mike knows he should break away, but he can’t bring himself to do it. It feels good, and at this point, he’s more than willing to blame Kevin for letting this go any further. When Kevin’s hands wander down Mike’s body towards his hips, Kevin grips them and Mike crowds him in further, closing any space left between them. 

Kevin’s fully dressed, and his jeans make it difficult to tell exactly how he feels about this. This time, Mike wants skin contact, and so he moves his hands down to list Kevin’s shirt and mess with the button on his jeans. He gets them undone at the same time Kevin turns his head, breaking their mouths apart. 

Mike freezes, wondering if Kevin is about the push him away. His hand is hovering over Kevin’s undone jeans, waiting, totally ready to yank them down, but he isn’t sure if he should. If Kevin doesn’t want it…

After a long moment, Mike starts to back off. Only Kevin follows him, gripping a hand around his neck to help drag himself up off the door and towards the bed. Kevin’s mouth isn’t on his, but instead Kevin has pulled him close, almost like he can’t bear to look at Mike while he shoves his jeans down with one hand and then reaches to grab onto Mike’s ass. 

They stumble towards the bed, and Mike pulls Kevin down on top of him, Kevin’s jeans and boxers still dragging around his ankles, and Mike somehow manages to squirm out of his sleeping pants so they at least let him free. When Kevin lands on top of him, forcing their mouths back together, they make contact, glorious, glorious skin contact, and Mike can’t help it. He moans. 

Probably louder than he meant to, because Kevin breaks the kiss and slaps a hand over Mike’s mouth and hushes him. They do live in a paper house, but really. Mike grins a little into his hand, and forces himself to push up into Kevin, and then Kevin is biting his own hand to keep from making really awesome noises. 

There’s a lot of actual kissing this time, and Mike is pretty good at it now that he has hands to work with. Kevin’s mostly in charge of the pace, and even when Mike reaches down between them and grabs them both in his hand, side by side, Kevin is surprisingly in control. 

He’s definitely done this before, Mike thinks. There’s no way he could be this calm otherwise. But then, Kevin has always been very goal oriented. He’s probably practiced for this very situation, and just assumed it would never occur. 

Mike comes first this time, and he can’t help the slur of “godyesKevin” that comes out of his mouth when he does, he really can’t, but for some reason it tips Kevin over the edge too, and as his finishes all over Mike’s stomach and his own chest, he totally curses. 

Mike laughs, because not only has he just made Kevin come, he’s made him say something explicative. He made Kevin curse, and that is like a total twofer. 

Kevin doesn’t collapse on top of him when he’s done, but instead rolls over onto his back beside Mike, both of them breathing heavy and staring up at the ceiling. 

They both just lay there, basking in the afterglow, their minds probably both racing a hundred miles a minute. Until Mike starts grinning again and lets out a few amused puffs of air when he hears Kevin cursing in his head again. He’s going to remember that forever. Kevin cursing. Because of him. Awesome. 

Beside him, Kevin is shrugging out of his shirt that he never managed to get off before they started, and he uses it to clean himself up a little bit. He looks like he’s going to toss it off the bed when he pauses, and then offers it to Mike. 

Mike grins, and takes it. When he’s slightly cleaner, he rolls his head over and says, “So, can we talk about it now?” 

Kevin groans quietly, putting a hand to his eyes. “Shut up, Mike.” 

Mike can’t help it. He laughs again, partly at Kevin’s own befuddlement, and partly at himself. 

“This isn’t funny, Mike,” Kevin scolds, and he even seems serious as he says it, which makes Mike laugh harder. “We have responsibilities. Mike!” 

Mike rolls his eyes, and then pushes himself up and onto his side, grabs Kevin’s face with one of his hands and says, playfully, “Yeah, that’s right, say my name.” And he kisses him. 

Kevin doesn’t pull away. He actually lifts one of his own hands to cup Mike’s face in return. And suddenly, cool, this is a thing that happens now. Sweet.


	2. Everyone Talks About It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be more porny, really. But then a plot happened, and, well. There was going to be a shower scene between Mike and Kevin in this one, but it didn't end up fitting, so I'll probably post that as a seperate one-shot later!

They try not to be conspicuous. Really, they do. Mike is under strict instructions to be completely normal or Kevin will physically hurt him (and Mike will probably enjoy it, Kevin thinks), but it doesn’t totally work. 

They avoid each other during the next morning’s practice completely. He spars with Emily and watches Mike and Mia spar from across the mats, but every once in a while he catches Mikes eye and blushes. 

He’s just really lucky that their team is not nearly as observant as they should be, and he’s usually able to play it off. 

Only Antonio is there, watching and shouting helpful comments, and when Mike calls him out about it and tells him to “get up or shut up”, they all stop to watch Mike and Antonio play-wrestle. 

And Kevin’s maybe even a little bit jealous. When Ji puts a stop to it, Kevin shoots Mike a look with a raised eyebrow, and he gets a _freaking wink_ in return. 

Nobody notices but him. 

At lunch, Mike sits just a bit too close while they all eat, but everyone is listening to Emily talk about the proper way to hold a chicken when you are trying to collect its eggs out from under it (really? Kevin thinks) and so when Mike presses his thigh up against Kevin’s absently, no one sees Kevin grip the table. 

That night, Kevin sits in his room, waiting. He wonders what he should do. Surely someone will notice if they keep coming out of the wrong rooms in the morning. Sooner or later they’ll get caught if someone comes to check on either of them. 

Only that’s the thing--they have an extreme likelihood of not being caught. Because their team trusts them, completely, and in the whole time he’s been here, no one has ever checked on him after his lights gone off. 

Thinking about how much the team trusts that they won’t be doing anything like this just makes Kevin put his face in his hands and groan. And then he thinks, what about Mia? He’s been trying really hard not to think about Mia. Or about the fact that he hasn’t thought about Mia at all since he got stuck to Mike. 

He likes her, sure. She’s a really good friend. But he’d tried to back off ever since she’d dropped that ridiculous hint about princes and being swept off her feet. He was not a sweeping sort of guy, he just wasn’t. Mia had basically said, hey Kevin, get with the picture, and instead of reciprocating in any way, he’d nodded stupidly and changed the subject. 

Straight guys didn’t do that. They totally didn’t freak out when a very pretty girl hinted they liked them. He thinks he’d known right then. If he couldn’t get it up for Mia, there was probably something wrong with him. 

The door to his room opens then, and Kevin jumps up off the bed in surprise. Mike comes in quietly, still dressed, and shuts the door behind him without a sound. 

Mike, of all people. Why did it have to be Mike? Most of the time they weren’t even friends. Mike drove him crazy on a good day, and he had been really certain for a long time that Mike had a thing for Emily. It had been good, really, because it had made Mike off limits. 

Not anymore, though. Mike was very much in limits now. 

Mike pauses when he looks at him, the giant smile fading from his face a little bit. “What’s wrong?” He asks, and he suddenly looks really uncomfortable. 

“Nothing,” Kevin shakes his head. “You startled me, is all.” 

Mike nods, and then narrows his eyes. “You were having a freak out, weren’t you?” 

Kevin rolls his eyes. “No.” He stares Mike down, using his small height advantage to look down at Mike from across the small room, and Mike just raises his eyebrows. 

Mike takes a few steps forward, and when he gets close enough, he reaches out and hooks a finger in one of Kevin’s belt loops. “Is it the ‘I might be gay and I’m scared’ freak out, or just a regular ‘I’m anal retentive and terrible at interpersonal communication’ freak out?” 

Kevin should be insulted. He really should. But Mike’s grinning at him in such a shy way, like it’s something he’s reserved exactly for this moment, and while it’s teasing it’s also got this really small undertone of _totally gets it_. 

Mike moves closer when Kevin doesn’t answer, and he takes his other hand and runs it up Kevin’s arm until it’s resting on his shoulder. Kevin pretends he isn’t totally relieved when Mike starts kissing him, and he wraps his hands around Mike’s lower back. But then Mike is pulling away, and Kevin is clinging onto him like he might just disappear which, okay, valid concern with all the unusual stuff they deal with everyday. Still, he tries not to seem too needy when Mike steps back. 

“We don’t have to do this,” he says, and he runs a hand through his hair bashfully. “I mean, we can stop. If you want to.” His voice says he doesn’t want to, at all, but Kevin is torn. 

“We shouldn’t be doing it,” Kevin says quietly, and he crosses his arms. 

“’Shouldn’t’ and ‘don’t want to’ are really different things,” Mike argues. He mimics Kevin and crosses his arms, and suddenly it’s like the room gets a whole lot bigger between them. 

“It’s not that simple,” Kevin tries, but he already knows it’s going to sound as weak as it did in his mind. “Mike, we’re rangers. We have an obligation to our family history.” 

Mike’s eyes get wide, and then he laughs. “You really are thinking ahead, aren’t you?” 

Kevin knows he gets it, so he barrels on anyway. “We’re supposed to get married, and have children, and pass it on. It’s not okay to be… I mean…” He trails off stupidly, never having said this aloud to anyone before and feeling insane saying it to Mike. Who he’s slept with 2 times in the last 24 hours alone. 

Mike takes a long minute staring at him with this incredibly quizzical look, like there’s something Kevin said that’s he’s trying to translate. “How long have you known you’re gay?” 

Kevin sputters a little bit, uncrosses and crosses his arms all over again, feeling uncomfortable. “I’m not, I mean… I don’t know.” 

Mike does this flaily little thing with his arms, totally flabbergasted, and then puts them on his hips in a determined way. “Okay first, gay people have kids all the time now. I hear they even get married on occasion. Welcome to the 21st century. Second, are you serious? You’re gay, and you’re that dedicated to the way of the samurai that you’re going to repress that and marry a girl and have a bunch of little samurai babies? Really?” Mike flails his arms again, like this is the most absurd thing he’s ever heard. 

His tone makes Kevin want to fight back. He frowns, steadies himself a bit. “What about you? You came onto me, remember? Twice!”

Mike gets this stupid grin on his face like the memory of that is a good thing, and Kevin gets flustered. 

“You have three younger brothers, Mike. _You_ can be gay. I’m an only child. If I don’t have kids, the blue ranger powers die with me. I’ve always known that.” Kevin get quieter, the reality of what he’s said sinking in, and he’s suddenly feeling sick all over again. 

Mike mumbles something that sounds like “always with the talking”, and then he’s coming towards Kevin, and his hands are around his face, and Mike is kissing him again, and Kevin tries to pull away in indignation. If Mike thinks he can just shut him up and get him to stop being upset by kissing him, he has another thing coming. 

When Kevin pushes him off, Mike just reaches back over with a confident grin and says, “Oh, no. Come here. I came here for a repeat performance of the last few times, but now? Now I’m on a mission.” 

He kisses Kevin again, and Kevin maybe lets him just a little bit this time, but eventually on principle he steps away again, and the backs of his knees hit his bed. Mike has successfully backed him into it and when he steps closer this time Kevin has no retreat. Knowing this, Mike’s advance is slower, calmer, more… seductive. 

“Kev, I don’t know what nonsense you’ve been feeding yourself, but I’m telling you, its nonsense. This is okay.” Mike reaches out, runs a hand down Kevin’s chest. “Wanting it is okay.” He tugs on Kevin’s t-shirt and one hand starts sliding underneath it. “And I’m going to make you see that its okay, or my name is not Michael Francis Montoya.” 

Kevin lets him get close this time, momentarily caught off guard by both Mike’s sincerity and his honesty, and when Mike’s face is within a breath of his own Kevin can’t help himself. “Francis?” He grins. 

“Yeah, okay,” Mike says quietly, pressing his forehead against Kevin’s cheek. “Get it out of your system.” 

Kevin can’t help it. His mouth parts in a small smile, and Mike takes that opportunity to cover it with his own. Mike pushes him back onto the bed gently, and they’re the wrong way on it, so that their feet are hanging off the side, but Mike crawls on top of him and Kevin is finding out he doesn’t care about being on the bed correctly at all. 

Mike is decidedly purposeful in the way he kisses Kevin, and it’s a few long minutes of super hot making out before Mike is tugging on Kevin’s shirt, trying to get it off of him. Kevin lifts himself up, lets Mike tug off his blue shirt and lays back down while Mike starts in on his neck. He takes the time to force Mike’s over shirt off his shoulders, revealing the tank underneath. 

Mike doesn’t waste any time, and he pulls back to yank the tank up and over and toss it aside too, and Kevin reaches out and touches his nicely sculpted chest and stomach and thinks it’s a good thing Mike is so damn annoying, because otherwise this might have happened a lot sooner. 

“You know,” Mike says as he leans back down over Kevin, with an amused look. “I wasn’t even that sure about this myself when I got here. But I think you’ve just convinced me.” 

Kevin sighs as dramatically as he can muster with Mike over him like this and says, “Oh well, you know how I like to be useful.” Then he fixes Mike with a pointed stare that makes him laugh, and then there’s more kissing, and more clothing comes off, and Kevin finds himself reaching over to the bedside table to fumble with the lamp. 

The light clicks off, and Mike mumbles “Oh, kinky” and then a muffled “Ow!” when Kevin smacks his ass. 

***

Emily tries for 3 hours to read Kevin’s copy of “The Way of the Samurai” before putting it down in frustration. It’s not that she isn’t smart enough to get it, because she absolutely is. Emily is remarkably smart. It’s just that it’s so dense with its wording, and the sentences run on for paragraphs, and the index of the book alone is 200 pages. It’d be a difficult read for anyone but Kevin, Emily imagines. It’s the kind of book she’d like to study in a class, where group discussions could be held, and a professor could correct them. 

For a moment, she smiles while she thinks of suggesting this to Kevin, and how flattered he would be if she asked him to teach it to them instead of just sharing his book around. Then she laughs at the way Mike and Antonio would react to that suggestion. There would probably be flailing, and hand waving, retaliations in the form of Mia’s cooking. 

Emily shakes her head and gets up from her bed, stretches, and then resolutely decides to give the book back so that it can’t sit on her bedside table, taunting her. She puts on a wrap and slips into her yellow duck slippers before picking up the book and toeing out into the hallway. It’s only 8, but everyone called it an early night after the incident on the island that afternoon. Save for Jayden, who had gone off on the grounds to do some brooding and angsting before bed. 

Emily wonders if Jayden will ever really relax as she pads down the hall towards Kevin’s room. He’s managed it a couple of times, but there always seems to be something heavy on his mind that he never lets go of completely. Antonio says it’s just the way Jayden has always been, even with him. It makes Emily a little sad. 

She reaches Kevin’s door and taps gently, but gets no answer. The light is on under the door, so she calls out, “Kevin? Are you awake?” 

When she doesn’t get an answer she gently nudges open the door to make sure he hasn’t fallen asleep studying, but the room is empty. Emily frowns, wondering where he could be. She leaves the book on his dresser, figuring he must be training, and makes a mental note to ask him about it later. 

She heads for the kitchen to get a glass of milk, and maybe raid the cookie jar. She’s passing Mike’s room when she hears muffled laughter, and she stops, curious. 

“Are we really having this conversation while I’m doing this?” Mike’s asking, and she hears a familiar sound of exasperation. 

“I swear Mike, wink at me one more time in front of the others--” It’s Kevin’s voice, and Emily knows she shouldn’t eavesdrop, but it seems unusual for the two of them to be hanging out together. She knows they’ve been getting along better lately, but it’s still odd, and she wonders what they’re doing. 

“And you’ll what?” Comes Mike’s sharp reply. “Call me on it? Beat me up? Smother me with kisses?” 

Emily’s eyes widen, and she leans closer to the door. There is a smile in Kevin’s voice when he answers, “You are a terrible person.” 

Mike’s reply is muffled by something, but she thinks he says “Keeps me awake at night.”

Kevin actually laughs before saying, “No, I do that.” 

Emily can’t help herself. She brings a hand up to her mouth to keep from laughing in spontaneous relief, and then quickly backs away from the door as quietly as she can. She forgets about going to the kitchen, and instead bolts for the only place she can laugh this hard about anything. She reaches Antonio’s room and throws open the door, rushing inside and collapsing into giggles as she closes the door behind her. 

Antonio is on his bed, listening to his giant headphones, and when Emily has collected herself, she goes over and sits on his bed and taps his leg. 

Antonio’s eyes open gently, like he wasn’t expecting her but isn’t surprised, and he pulls off his headphones with one of his giant happy smiles. “Hey, Em. You’re happy.” 

“I really shouldn’t,” Emily says through her grin, “but you will never believe what I am about to tell you.” 

Antonio sits up, interested. She holds out her pinky finger in a way she has before with Antonio, swearing him to secrecy, and he takes it, looking even more excited. “This must be really good.” 

When she tells him, Antonio just gets this far away look, like he’s considering. “Yeah, I can see it.” He says nonchalantly. 

“Really?” She insists. “Mike and Kevin?” 

Antonio shrugs. “Why not? They’re both good looking, healthy young men.”

“And you know all about good looking, healthy young men,” Emily teases, but Antonio waggles his eyebrows at her. 

She falls back on the bed next to Antonio’s legs, sprawling her arms out. 

“I’m just so relieved. I though Mike liked _me_.” Emily laughs. “I had no idea how I was going to let him down if he ever asked. I’d probably have ended up dating him for months before I figured out we were even dating.” She giggles, and Antonio laughs at her. 

“He still might,” he insists, waggling a finger at her. “Sexuality is fluid. You are assuming they’re both gay because of what you heard. Bisexuality is a thing.” 

Emily smacks his finger. “I know that,” she insists, but she wrinkles her nose. 

“And you know what happens when we assume things!” Antonio goes on. 

Emily laughs at the familiar joke. “Yeah, Jayden get’s cuter.” 

Antonio sighs dramatically with another one of his far away looks. “Yes. Yes he does.” 

She pinches his toe within reach to bring him back and he shimmies it away from her. “Is that what you are? Bisexual?” 

“I’m in love with Jayden,” Antonio grins, trying and failing to look totally nonchalant as he says it. “Take that how you will.” 

Emily rolls her eyes, sits up and wraps her arms around her legs. “Why are they sneaking around, though? Don’t they think we’d be okay with it?” 

Antonio rolls his eyes again. “We live in strange times, love. Sexuality may be fluid, but it’s also a highly personal journey from one end of the spectrum to the other. Besides, Jayden will probably freak out and have to go prove his manhood if anyone even thinks about mentioning feelings around him.” 

Emily lets him have that one, because if what Antonio has told her is true, Jayden is so far in the closet they’ll have to unpack his personal baggage for years before he’s willing to be open about it. 

“It’s kind of neat though, not being the team’s token gay guy. I mean, it’s a position I fill with dignity and honor, but it’s lonely at the top.” Antonio preaches at her, and Emily shoves him for good measure. 

“I guess the way of the samurai isn’t exactly conducive to fluidity,” Emily admits, thinking some more about Kevin’s ridiculous reading material. 

“On the contrary,” Antonio says brightly, “Homoerotic relationships date back thousands of years, and the Samurai tradition is no exception. There was a time it was even encouraged. You’d think we’d be less emotionally constipated about it today, and not more, but here we are.” 

Emily tries not to blush at the term “homoerotic relationships”, but she can’t help it. She hugs her knees closer. “I hope they don’t think they can hide it forever. I certainly won’t be able to look at them the same now.” 

Antonio gives her a rare serious look. “You will play nice and keep your mouth shut, _gringa_. If you end up accidentally outing someone on this team, we are going to have issues.” 

She holds up her hand. “I won’t, I promise, I’ll just giggle to myself and be happy I don’t have to worry about flirting with Mike.” 

Something occurs to her then, and her face falls. Antonio’s far away again, and she puts a hand on his leg to bring him back. 

“What about Mia?” Emily asks, worried. “I think she really likes Kevin.” 

“What makes you say that?” Antonio frowns at her. 

“Well, she’s always doing nice things for him, and giving him compliments, and she cooked him dinner that time he had to stake out that kids house--”

She knows it’s coming before he says it, so she pauses and waits for Antonio to say, “Jeez, what does she do when she doesn’t like someone?” before she pinches his arm playfully and continues. 

“I don’t think Kevin’s leading her on or anything, but…” Emily chews her lip. 

Antonio shakes his head. “She doesn’t all that stuff for you too, you know. If we’re talking about fluidity…” 

Emily gives him a look. “Antonio.” 

Antonio shrugs. “I know it’s hard to believe at times, but we’re all grownups here. I’m sure whatever happens we’ll all be able to handle it.” He says it like there’s something he knows that she doesn’t, and then he picks up a magazine and starts reading like he’s done gossiping. 

Emily knows he’s right, but still she worries. She’s a worrier, its part of what she does. Especially for people she cares about. 

She worries about Mia more than usual that night. 

***

“You need a bigger bed,” Mike mumbles one night when Kevin’s almost asleep. 

“Oh, sorry, let me just go tell mentor that you think my bed isn’t adequate for spooning,” Kevin teases sleepily. “I’m sure he’ll get right on that.” 

Mike grins into his shoulder, and he shifts, kissing Kevin’s skin before he rolls away and onto his back. With a long suffering sigh of someone whose secret boyfriend is a really bad bed hog, Kevin rolls over and snuggles into him, draping an arm and a leg across him. 

“We could, you know,” Mike continues to mumble, this time into Kevin’s forehead. 

“Sleep now, talk later,” Kevin instructs. 

“When has that ever worked?” Mike wonders. He brings a hand up to rub Kevin’s arm, and Kevin sighs. 

“I keep hoping,” he says halfheartedly. 

“It wouldn’t be the end of the world,” Mike insists, and Kevin thinks about the best way to distract him into sleep. 

“You’ve never even been _in_ the closet,” Kevin whines, contemplating biting Mike’s neck. “What do you know about coming out of it?” 

Mike huffs amusedly. “I’m just saying-- Ah!” 

Kevin bites him, and grins when Mike wriggles away. “See, arguments over. Anytime anyone has to say ‘I’m just saying’, they have nothing left to say.” 

Mike is quiet for a few minutes, and Kevin is starting to drift off in the silence when he feels a hand between his legs. “If you think I’m letting you sleep tonight after you bit me, you are crazy.” 

Kevin sort of grins stupidly before contemplating Mike’s statement tiredly. He’s in bed with Mike, sleeping with Mike, about to be fondled (again) by Mike. He’s pretty sure he’s already crazy. 

***

Mike is able to convince Kevin to go jogging with him as part of their training one day, and he knows that Kevin knows what he’s going to do to him as soon as they’re in a secluded area. It’s a sign of how serious this is getting that Kevin agrees to it, and doesn’t even protest when Mike has his hand down his shorts as soon as they’re hidden behind some tree cover. Mike is suddenly aware that Kevin’s actually invested something in him to be blowing off samurai training to spend time with Mike, of all people, and while it’s a little bit of pressure, Mike thinks it’s good for him. 

He’s never really been important to anyone, not like that, and while Kevin can be a complete jerk at times and far too rigid about rules at others and melodramatic and too serious at the best of times, Mike thinks that some of that is his desire to please everyone, to never really let another human being in around his walls. Sure, Mike stumbled in accidentally, but he’s not going to waste the opportunity now that he has it. 

Especially not when Kevin smiles at him like that when they’ve finished, and his stomach does a stupid little flip. 

It occurs to them they haven’t been particularly careful about their clothes one night when Mike is looking for clean underwear and has absolutely none because most of them are shoved under his bed, covered in sticky substances. Ji does a lot of the chores around the house, including laundry, and neither Mike nor Kevin had wanted him stumbling across those, especially not in that volume. 

Which is how they find themselves covertly sneaking a large hamper into the small laundry room one Sunday afternoon when everyone is busy, running errands or slacking off. Mike can’t help but grin as they do it, shoving all of their laundry haphazardly into the washer. 

Kevin throws in what’s probably a bit more detergent than they need, and when they shut the door he lets out a sigh of relief. Mike grins at him, but decides not to poke fun at his nerves. There are plenty of things they could be caught doing that would be considered worse than doing laundry together. 

They wait for a few minutes in silence, Kevin leaning back against the far wall across from the door, probably keeping watch. Bored, and maybe still a bit horny since they’d been called out to fight that morning before they’d properly woken up, Mike fixes Kevin with a mischievous look. 

Its takes maybe a minute before Kevin feels his eyes on him and looks over. “What?”

“We have like, an hour before the wash is done.” Mike grins at him, turning around and leaning back against the noisy washing machine. 

The corner of Kevin’s mouth turns up, but he looks away with a resolute, “No, Mike.” 

Not so easily deterred, Mike lifts himself backwards onto the top of the washing machine and lets his legs hang open. “We could probably do it right here,” Mike says quietly. Kevin is deliberately not looking at him, but Mike knows he can’t shut him out completely. He makes a small noise that makes Kevin’s nostrils flare. “Yeah, I bet that’d feel real good.” 

He lets himself moan a little bit, leaning back into the rocking motion of the washer, and he closes his eyes, waiting. 

“Mike,” Kevin’s voice is tight, but Mike can tell he has him, “stop.” 

“Make me,” Mike says, and he’s reaching down to adjust his jeans when he feels a hand on his leg. He opens his eyes and there’s Kevin, looking flustered and a little bit annoyed. Mike is about to pout when Kevin steps forward, between Mike’s legs and rests his other hand on Mike’s hip. 

He isn’t at all prepared when Kevin looks up at him from under his eyelashes and then ducks his head, breathing a hot breath into Mike’s pulsing dick. 

“Ohh,” Mike laughs, tugging Kevin back up to his mouth. “Why hello.”

It’s a weird shift, feeling taller than Kevin, bending his neck to kiss him fully. Kevin leans into the kiss, and he wraps his arm around Mike’s lower back and tugs him forward on the washer so that he’s on the edge of it, his groin pressed up into Kevin’s stomach. Mike tries not to rub against him too much. 

Kevin’s tongue is in his mouth, slow and exploratory, and Mike realizes if they do anything it’s going to be one of those times where Kevin needs it to be slow and easy and quiet, and not hot and fast and mind blowing. It’s still okay (even though Mike sort of wants Kevin to turn him around and bend him over the ironing board in a passion) because he knows that Kevin likes this, needs this in a different way than the other stuff. And if he’s honest, any kind of sex with Kevin blows his mind when Kevin comes, totally free and open, Mike knowing he’s made that happen. 

_Huh_ , Mike thinks, wrapping a hand around the back of Kevin’s neck. This must be what relationships feel like, he realizes, if he’s so easily ready to give up what he’d wanted for what Kevin needs. He thinks he and Kevin might actually be pretty good together, if a time ever comes when they’re not on constant terror alert, fighting nighlocks and saving the planet any given day. If a time ever comes where they actually get to have a relationship, beyond this tentative friendship and bed sharing and exhausted relief of feeling alive. And okay, Mike thinks he’d been inordinarily relieved when they’d walked away from that last battle in one piece, and not just because he was alive. 

But because Kevin was. 

Mike sighs into Kevin’s mouth, trying to get closer to him, and Kevin makes a small noise that immediately makes Mike okay with all of it, and he shuts his mind off and focuses on kissing his boyfriend. 

They keep kissing, and Mike’s reaching his other hand between them to lift Kevin’s shirt when there’s a small click, and a creak of the door opening, and Kevin slams him back and away from him so hard that Mike whacks his head against the cabinets above the washing machine. He reaches to grab the back of his head while his vision goes white for a moment, making a pained noise, and at least whoever has walked in won’t see his erection because it’s totally gone now. 

When his vision clears, he sees Kevin, standing a few feet away from him, his face flushed and horrified, and he’s looking at, oh great, Mia, who’s standing in the doorway with her own pink hamper and wide eyes. 

She can’t have seen much. Kevin’s reflexes are cat-like, and if he’d just stepped away instead of trying to throw Mike off him, they’d have been fine. But Mike is pretty sure his head is bleeding, and he tries to smile weakly at Mia, who just keeps looking between them like she doesn’t know what to say. Which, okay, totally valid. Mike wouldn’t know what to say if he walked in on Mia and Emily doing something sexy, so. He figures it’s their responsibility to say something first. 

Before Mike can think of something, Kevin is mumbling an apology that makes no sense, something about training in stupid places, and then he slides past Mia and out of the laundry room. Mike watches him go, feeling distinctly betrayed at having been left alone like that. Then he remembers its Kevin though, and his internalized homophobia is probably trying to tear him apart from the inside out, so. Mike tries not to hold it against him. 

He slips down from the washing machine and fixes Mia with a friendly smile. “Hey there, Mia. How’s your day going?” 

Mia looks at him like that’s a trick question. “Good. Fine. Just uh…” she lifts the hamper a little bit to gesture. “Doing some laundry.” 

Mike nods, purses his lips. “Well, I just put a load in so. It’s gonna be just a bit.” 

Mia nods quickly, smiles a nervous smile and then sets her hamper down on the folding table. “That’s fine. I’ll just leave this here.” 

And she ducks out of the laundry room, closing the door. 

Mike contemplates for a moment, and then finally let’s himself slip down to the floor, leaning against the dryer. He reaches up to touch the spot on his head again, which already feels less painful. With a sigh, he resigns himself to waiting for the laundry to finish, and then he’s going to go find Kevin and… well, he doesn’t know what. 

But he’s going to go find Kevin. Because he didn’t just admit to himself in his head that he wants to be Kevin’s boyfriend to toss that aside as soon as Kevin has a melodramatic freak out. 

The rest of the time he spends in the laundry room goes by without incident, and when he is pulling their clothes out of the dryer he wonders why Mia was doing her own laundry too. He eyes the basket warily, wondering if he and Kevin aren’t the only ones around here hiding something. 

He considers letting Mia know he’s finished and she can use the wash, but he thinks it might be awkward, so he just goes back to his own room instead. He sorts his clothes out from Kevin’s, leaving them mostly in a huge pile on the bed, and then picks the hamper back up and heads for Kevin’s room determinedly. 

Kevin’s pacing when Mike opens his door, and Kevin jumps. Mike hurries in and closes the door only for Kevin to hiss at him, “What are you doing? Did anyone see you?”

Mike rolls his eyes and drops the laundry basket. “Yeah, I ran into every single one of them and offhandedly mentioned we were sleeping together.” 

Kevin deflates a little bit at Mike’s tone, but only a little bit. He runs both hands over his head and face in a very stressed out way, and then scrubs at the top of his head with them like he can get whatever is out of his head by raking it away. 

“Kev,” Mike takes a few steps towards him. 

Kevin drops his hands and looks at him. “Don’t.” He warns. 

Mike stops, and sticks his hands in his pockets, uncertain. He waits. 

After a few minutes Kevin drops his gaze and goes to sit on his bed, his back to Mike and his head in his hands. Mike drops any pretense at all of waiting when he sees Kevin’s shoulders shake and Jesus, Kevin doesn’t even cry like a normal person. 

He does this silent sob thing where no tears come out, but he has his eyes buried in his hands like he’s waiting for the tears and they just won’t come. 

Mike walks over and climbs onto the bed behind Kevin, crawling in as close as he can get and wrapping his arms around Kevin’s big shoulders and hooking them around Kevin’s chest. He straddles Kevin’s back with his legs, letting them hang off the bed beside Kevin’s. With a sigh he tries to rest his chin on Kevin’s shoulder and pull him closer, but Kevin is leaning away from him, curling into his own body like he’s trying to get away from Mike’s embrace. 

Mike rolls his eyes again. “Kevin,” he commands, “come’er.” 

Kevin doesn’t move. 

Mike tugs at him. “Kevin, I think we both know you’re stronger than me. I can’t pull you back here, so I’m going to ask nicely again. Come here.” 

Kevin lets out another one of his not-normal sobs before he lets Mike pull him back onto the bed a bit, enough so that Mike can effectively wrap his entire body around Kevin’s like a protective cocoon. Kevin drops his hands down from his face to cover around Mike’s, like Mike might actually try to pull away from him, and says “You didn’t see her face.” 

“Yes I did,” Mike objects gently against Kevin’s ear. “Trust me, it was not a ‘Oh Em Gee, look at those queers’ face. It was the ‘my friends are romantically involved and _didn’t tell me’_ face.” 

And okay, maybe it’s not the right time to push that particular button of Kevin’s, because Kevin immediately squirms out of Mikes embrace, using his strength to push his arms and his legs away from him and stands, his face contorted into anger. He points at the door. “Get out.” 

Mike stares at him for a minute. Kevin doesn’t move, save for the way his chest is rising and falling in an angry way. “Kevin--” he starts, about to tell Kevin he doesn’t really want him to go, but Kevin interrupts him. 

“I mean it Mike, I’m not doing this.” Kevin actually stomps his foot, like it’s going to make him look any more serious. “This is all just a stupid game to you! It doesn’t mean anything to you, but this is my life you’re joking about. I’m not doing this anymore. I can’t.” 

Mike tries to figure out for a minute if Kevin is serious--it _doesn’t mean anything_ to him?!--before he stands from the bed too, his own voice gone hard and angry. “Okay. Fine. You want me gone? You want to keep lying about who you are? Fine. Go propose to Mia and ignore me and be your usual superior self.” Mike lifts his own angry finger this time, walking over and jabbing it into Kevin’s chest with as much force as he can muster. “But you _don’t_ get to tell me how I feel about this. You don’t get to decide what I wanted out of this!”

Kevin looks a little stunned, turning over Mike’s words in his head, but Mike doesn’t wait for him to change his mind. He’s not even sure he wants Kevin to change his mind. He just heads for the door, and if he knocks Kevin’s stack of books off his dresser and onto the floor in anger before he slams his door behind him, well. 

Kevin has a lot of things to sort out, so Mike doesn’t see the problem in giving him one more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Antonio uses the term "gringa" as an affectionate reprimand here. It's not meant to be offensive in any way, shape, or form.


	3. Fluidity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure that this is exactly how I saw this story turning out in the end, but I love it, and I hope that you do to. Un-beta'd, as always, so just ignore your inner english major and figure out what I really meant and move on. And thank you for reading! <3

She hears the shower click off through the wall, and she twists a little bit in her slumped position on her bed. It’s not late, exactly, but she thinks most everyone has gone to bed already. 

Mia can’t sleep, and the sound of the shower had been a welcome reminder that she was never as alone as she thought she might be. She had already made up her mind to go and see who it was, offer midnight snacks, maybe find someone to chat with. She hoped it wasn’t Kevin or Mike, but if it was, she’d put on a happy face and find some way through it. 

Slipping into her bunny slippers, tossing aside her giant pink panda bear plushie, Mia finds a wrap to hide the fact she isn’t wearing her bra and ducks out of her room into the hallway. 

There’s a soft humming coming from inside the bathroom, and Mia smiles, relieved. Emily is always able to take her mind off things. 

She knocks quietly. 

The humming stops. “I’ll be out in a minute.” 

“It’s me,” Mia says, giving the doorknob a twist and sticking her hand inside to wave at Emily, but without looking in case she isn’t dressed yet. 

“You can come in,” Emily says, a smile evident in her voice. Mia opens the door enough to go in, but doesn’t close it behind her. The steam that has built up is wafting out slowly into the hallway. “Hey,” Emily says, catching Mia’s eye in the mirror. She’s wearing flip flops, and a rainbow colored after-show towel wrap with straps. Her hair is still dripping wet, and she’s toweling it off. 

“I thought I was the only one still awake.” Mia says, leaning against the wall, watching. 

Emily shrugs. “I’ve been too tired to shower almost all week,” she admits, wrinkling her nose. “There’s only so much perfume I can put on to mask it.” 

Mia laughs. 

“What about you?” Emily wonders after a small moment, finally dropping the towel to the floor and running her fingers through her messy damp hair. 

It’s Mia’s turn to shrug. “I can’t sleep. Nervous energy,” she supplies. Should she tell Emily? Emily would probably know what to do, now that she thinks about it. Emily was always good with situations involving the team, whereas Mia preferred to leave inter-team dynamics to everyone else. 

“You wanna do something?” Emily offers, rubbing lotion into her arms. “We could spar?” 

“Nah,” Mia waves her off, “you just got all squeaky clean. You should enjoy it.” Mia pauses, considers. There’s nothing quite like making someone else feel good to cheer yourself up, she knows from experience. And maybe sometime Emily would return the favor, if she asked later. “Why don’t you let me brush your hair?” 

Emily pauses in her lotion-rubbing effort, looks for Mia’s eyes in the mirror. “Huh?” 

“What, you’ve never had your hair brushed before?” Mia jokes with a grin, coming forward and grabbing Emily’s wide, yellow brush off the counter. “There is nothing in life as good as having ones hair brushed. _Nothing_.” 

Emily eyes her with a slow forming smile, like she’s suddenly impossibly excited. Maybe she never actually _has_ had her hair brushed before. It had been the only way Mia’s mother could put her to sleep when she was little, and she misses it all the time now. 

“Come on,” Mia says, and she grabs Emily’s hand, leads her out of the bathroom and across the hall to her room. They end up sitting on the bed, Emily holding Mia’s giant pink panda in her arms, sitting in from of Mia, who folds her legs and props herself up with a pillow before gently starting to work the brush through Emily’s damp, blond hair. 

Emily’s shoulders slump a bit, and she lets out this contented noise and Mia starts feeling better already. This, Mia thinks. This is why she wants kids. Why she wants a huge family. Because even with all the hard parts, like giving birth and teaching them to read or not eat lead paint, even with the parts where they grow up and make bad choices and have to learn from their own mistakes, even with the parts where they end up unhappy at times, Mia knows that the good always outweighs the bad. She knows that the little moments, like her mom brushing her hair, are just as important as all the big, scary moments, like being handed a morpher, or learning to drive. 

And, if Mia is completely honest, she adores taking care of people who let her. The boys don’t let her so much, and when they do it’s in very small ways, but Emily. Emily always lets her help out, lets her pamper her, and lets her do whatever she can to take the weight from Emily’s shoulders. And the best part is that Emily is a great caretaker, too. She’s always ready to give back any energy Mia puts into her, and it’s like one awesome cycle of love and support. 

Mia couldn’t have asked for a better best friend. 

Emily shifts a little bit, her head falling forward. “I’m not sure how this is helping you feel better,” she says around a smile, “but I am not complaining.” 

Mia smiles. “See? I told you so.” She continues to brush Emily’s drying hair, swishes it one way and then another, brushes it down straight, runs her fingers through it to destroy the lines the brush leaves behind, then brushes them in again. 

“I can’t believe no one ever told me how good this feels,” Emily laughs, hugging the pink panda bear closer. “It must be terrible to be a boy.” 

Mia arches an eyebrow at Emily’s back. “What?” 

“Short hair,” Emily clarifies, still smiling. “They don’t know what they’re missing.” 

“Neither did you, until five minutes ago,” Mia observes. She sets down the brush, rakes both her hands through Emily’s soft hair one at a time, messing it up and running her nails over the scalp. “Next time we have a day off, we should go to a day spa. Have our hair washed and styled, feet rubbed.” She picks the brush back up, starts in again, enjoys the purr of contentment that escapes Emily’s lips. 

“It’s a date,” Emily agrees. “And when the boys complain, we can explain to them the joy of hair brushing, and watch their faces get confused because they have no idea!” 

Mia laughs, bites her lip, then says it anyway. “I dunno,” she jokes, “I’m pretty sure Jayden’s hair is long enough for Antonio to brush.” 

Emily snorts, slaps a hand to her mouth, drops it and shakes her head. “They are so obvious, aren’t they?” 

Mia laughs too, because really, sometimes it’s painful watching the two of them interact. “Are they, uh--”

“Not like, officially, or anything.” Emily says, sobering. “Antonio says Jayden has some issues with fluidity.” 

Mia tilts her head, asks a silent question, waits for Emily to go on instead of prying. She wasn’t aware that Emily was so in the know about their friends. Maybe she knows more than Mia, anyhow. 

“Sexuality,” Emily says, and she’s using an accent like she’s trying to be Antonio, “is fluid. That’s what Antonio says, anyway.” 

“What do you say?” Mia wonders, brushing Emily’s hair into a high pony tail. 

“I say that sexuality really shouldn’t be one of our big worries, what with Nighlocks and the world at stake every day. You wouldn’t know it, though, looking at our team.” Emily says, and she glances back over her shoulder at Mia, like she is uncertain whether or not she should continue. She turns her head back around, takes a breath in, and says in a rush, “Kevin and Mike are totally doing it, too.” 

Mia lets out a surprised laugh, leans forward against Emily’s shoulder and sighs, relieved. “Oh god I knew it. I totally caught them making out in the laundry room today!” 

Emily turns, her eyes wide. “What?” 

“Yeah,” Mia nods, still giggling. “Well, I didn’t actually see anything, but when I came in the room they were both all hot in the face and looking absolutely horrified and then they just stared at me for five minutes. It was so, so awkward.”

“Oh, no,” Emily says, doing her best to look embarrassed second hand but smiling too. “What did they say?” 

“I have no idea what Kevin said,” Mia scrunches up her face, thinking. “Mike was totally cool, though. Oh man, now I know why they were doing laundry.” 

Emily’s face looks horrified for a minute, but then she scrunches up her nose and they both burst out laughing. The thought of it, of Mike and Kevin, of Jayden and Antonio, is not so ridiculous. It’s the sneaking around, the secret lovers aspect that makes Mia giggle and blush. It’s like something out of a ridiculous dirty novel. 

“Shhhh,” Emily says, pulling a finger up to her own lips. “It’s late, we should be quiet!” 

Mia looks sheepish when she says, “Bet that’s not the only time that’s been muttered in this house.” 

Emily smacks her hand to her forehead as she continues to smile, and when they finally calm down Emily looks at her, concerned. “And you’re okay with this?” 

Mia frowns. “Why wouldn’t I be?” 

Emily shrugs. “I just got the impression sometimes that you liked Kevin.” 

“Oh,” Mia nods, “yeah. I think I did. Maybe. I was never really sure. I’m just a sucker for kids, I think,” she observes, raking a hand through Emily’s hair again. “He was so cute with that little boy, and my maternal instinct kicked in. So yeah, I liked Kevin, sure. But I’m not heartbroken, or anything.” 

“Oh, good,” Emily says, relieved. “I was worried you’d be upset.” 

Mia shakes her head, gives Emily a hug. “Thank you for worrying about my feelings.” 

“I always worry about you.” Emily hugs her back, and when they pull away, she stifles a yawn. 

Mia tucks some hair behind Emily’s ear, watches as Emily leans into the touch sleepily. “Fluidity, huh?” 

Emily opens her eyes, looks at Mia with a question. Mia leans toward her, turns her head at the last minute, plants a sharp kiss on Emily’s cheek. 

“I’m good with that,” she says as she pulls back. Emily’s cheeks flush against her pale skin, and Mia thinks it’s good her skin is darker. She’d hate it if everyone could tell what she was thinking all the time just by looking at her cheeks. “To be honest, I just really want like, a million babies. How I get them is a bit less important, as long as everyone’s happy.” 

Mia leans back into her pillow, is a little surprised when Emily shifts in next to her, lying down too. “A million?” She asks skeptically. 

“You’re right,” Mia jokes, squeezing Emily’s hand when she finds it and their fingers interlace. “Not ambitious enough. A bazillion.” 

Emily laughs, makes herself comfortable against Mia, and Mia reaches over to her bedside table, sets the hair brush down, and turns off the lamp. They’ll only get a few hours anyway, she thinks, so they might as well cuddle it out and make the most of it. 

“A bazillion babies,” Emily mumbles, half asleep, like the idea is both hilarious and intriguing. Mia turns her head, and her nose bumps against Emily’s in the dark. 

They Eskimo kiss for a minute until Emily snuggles closer, pushes their lips together gently, and then proceeds to pull away and fall asleep, a smile on her face. 

Mia falls asleep soon after, dreaming of adorable babies with Emily’s face.

***

He dreams about Mike that night, and every night after. They don’t speak to each other unless they have to that week, and Kevin avoids Mike’s gaze when he can. Occasionally though he catches Mike’s eye, and the hurt and anger he sees there rips him up inside. 

He doesn’t know how to fix things between them, and all it does is frustrate him. He isn’t sure he wants to fix it, exactly, but he’s like things to at least be able to go back to the way they were. Only he knows it’s impossible, knows they can’t just ignore everything. 

He tries not to let it show. He doesn’t need Mia looking at them and suspecting anything, and he tries to ask as normal as possible. Mike, though, seems determined to undermine him at every possible opportunity, and he’s so unfriendly that Ji asks them to spar together one morning and Mike outright refuses. 

“What?” Ji says, surprised. 

“I just don’t wanna work with Kevin,” Mike says easily, voice full of venom. 

Kevin tries not to look at anyone. “I can spar with Antonio,” he offers. 

“No,” Ji says, looking between them, and Kevin wants to shake Mike for drawing this kind of attention to them. “I assigned the work outs this morning, and you’ll do them as planned.” He seems flabbergasted at having been challenged, and Mike picks up his practice bow begrudgingly. 

Jayden and Mia take one matt, Antonio and Emily another, and Mike and Kevin are left staring at each other in silence, each waiting for the other to start attacking. 

It’s half hearted at best on Kevin’s part, but Mike seems to be hitting a little bit harder than necessary. 

At one point, Mike throws down the practice sword, looks at Kevin, furious. “Would you quit going easy on me?” He says, arms out. “I can take it, god, come on!”

He picks up the sword, strikes at Kevin overhead, and Kevin feels his face harden as he stops it from landing. “Fine!” 

They spar hard, the blows coming in with loud cracks that rattle across the courtyard. Kevin has to roll away from Mike once or twice and he gets the better of him, but Mike ends up flipping backwards and out of his reach, making Kevin swing at nothing, trying to tire him out because he’s swinging so _hard_ that Mike can’t take the blows anymore. 

They keep it up until Ji interferes, reaching out and grabbing Kevin’s lathe with his hand before it can land on Mike’s shoulder. Ji yanks it away from Kevin, and only then does he realize that the rest of the team has stopped sparing to watch them, looks of shock and confusion on their faces. 

They’re both breathing hard, and when Kevin looks back at Mike, he feels suddenly guilty. There’s a purple welt forming on one of his arms where one of the blows connected, sweat soaking his practice uniform, and he’s literally shaking. Mike seems to realize it at the same time, drops his practice sword and doubles over, trying to catch his breath. 

“What is going on?” Ji asks, looking between them. “Is there something I need to know about?” 

Kevin is ready to shake his head when Mike says, “Ask Kevin.” 

Kevin glares, any guilt he had at hurting Mike dissolving in the face of his fury that boils to the surface. “Mike started it,” he says, teeth clenched. 

“Yeah,” Mike says, voice bitter, as he stands back up. “And you finished it, so.” 

Kevin stares at him, angry and hurt and not at all wanting things to go down like this. But he can’t help it. He’s overloading, his mind racing, and he’s so mad that he just needs to calm down somehow, so he runs. 

He flees the courtyard, running into the house, into his room, where he shuts the door and breaks down. 

***

“I’m going for a walk,” Mike announces as Kevin goes towards the house, and Emily wants to stop him but he looks so dejected that she can’t bring herself to reach out to him. 

He walks out the front gate, and silence fills the courtyard. Ji looks between the gate and the house, trying to decide. Finally, he looks at all of them, says “Keep practicing, I’m going to… ah!” and disappears inside the house. 

Antonio whistles in the stillness that follows. 

“What’s going on with them?” Jayden asks, looking at her. Emily bites her lip, looks first at Mia, then at Antonio. 

Antonio shakes his head fervently at her, but Emily knows that something has happened to make Mike and Kevin act like that, and it’s up to them as friends to fix it. “Let’s go inside,” she says, grabbing Jayden’s arm and steering him towards the house. “We should probably all talk.” 

They sit in the living room while Emily relays everything she knows to Jayden, Mia listening beside her in the chair, and Antonio watching Jayden nervously from the hallway, pacing. 

“So when you say together,” Jayden says slowly, raising both eyebrows in understanding. 

“Knocking boots,” Mia agrees from beside Emily, and Emily gives her a look that totally ineffective because she’s trying to keep from smiling. “What?” Mia says, a smile pulling at her own lips. “I’m helping!” 

“And clearly something has happened,” Jayden continues, ignoring them, “which means they probably aren’t together anymore.” 

Emily makes a sad face at him. “I think they’re afraid we won’t approve,” she says cautiously, looking over at Antonio. 

“I don’t approve,” Jayden says, and Emily feels Mia stiffen beside her. “Team relationships complicate things. What if we got called out to fight right now and they couldn’t get it together in time? We put the whole world in danger by letting our feeling interfere with being rangers, being a part of the team.” 

“I think that’s a terrible justification for denying your own feelings,” Mia says, and Emily’s head snaps to her the same way Jayden’s does. “Life is complicated Jayden. Becoming rangers didn’t stop us from being human beings. What’s your life plan? Don’t fall in love until it’s convenient?”

Jayden looks wounded, stunned, and Antonio has his face in his hands behind him in the hallway. “This isn’t about me,” he says stiffly, and Emily watches Mia roll her eyes. 

“Yeah, because there are absolutely no parallels between what’s going on with Mike and Kevin and what’s going on with you and Antonio.” Mia says, eyes narrowing. 

“I really feel like we should leave me out of this,” Antonio calls from the hallway, giving Mia cease and desist motions with his hands. 

“The point,” Emily says quickly, trying to dissolve the tension, “is that Mike and Kevin are hurting, and we’re their friends, and we should do something about it.” 

Jayden looks away from Mia, fixes his glare on Emily. “Like?” 

Emily purses her lips, uncertain. Mike saves her by coming through the door, looking calmer and more collected and genuinely surprised to see everyone sitting around like this. 

“Mike!” Emily says, trying to sound happy. “Are you okay?” 

Mike eyes them all suspiciously, then sits down on the stairs leading into the room, looking downtrodden. “This is what I was trying to tell him,” he says, and he wraps his arms around his legs. “You all obviously know, and it’s fine. Is it fine, right?” 

Emily stands, walking over to Mike and wrapping an arm around his shoulders before Jayden can say anything. “Of course it is!”

“You guys totally aren’t even the weirdest thing going on around here,” Mia says casually, and Emily has to purse her lips again to keep from laughing. 

“I already know what you’re gonna say,” Mike says, pointing to Jayden, who looks surprised. “Samurai duty and honor and priorities and blah, blah, blah.” 

Jayden looks maybe a little annoyed, and Emily imagines Mia is giving him an ‘I told you so’ look. “I wasn’t, I mean…” Jayden fumbles, looks back at Antonio, who is still decidedly staying out of the entire situation. “It is okay.” 

Mike sighs. “Well, it’s done anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.” 

Mia scoffs. “In a world where ‘done’ means ‘so not done at all’.” 

Before anyone can say anything else, Kevin walks into the room from the hall, and everyone turns to him. Mike stiffens under Emily’s arm, and she tries to give him a reassuring squeeze. Kevin’s eyes dart between them all, and then settle on Mike with a look of total betrayal. 

“I didn’t say a word!” Mike says, listing his hands up in defense. 

“It was me!” Emily follows, standing up. “I’m really sorry, but I overheard you guys one night, and then this morning…” she shrugs, helpless, looks to Mia for help. 

Mia makes a serious face, looks at Kevin. “Kevin,” she says, narrowing her eyes. “Everyone in this room is some version of queer. It’s really not a big deal.” 

For the first time, Antonio participates, laughs, walks over and offers Mia a high five. Emily deflates, watches Mia give Antonio the high five, and Antonio gives her this look of knowing, and she tries to smile at Kevin bashfully. 

Kevin’s face is scrunched, pained, and he shakes his head. “It’s not… like that. I mean, we were just, there wasn’t…” 

Mike stands beside her, takes a few steps forward. “Yeah, maybe you weren’t in a relationship, but I was. It meant something to me. It was my life too.” 

Emily suddenly gets the feeling like they should all mosey on out, like they are intruding on a private moment that’s happening, but no one else looks like they have any intention of moving, so she stays perfectly still. 

Kevin looks like he wants to step forward, and his hand twitches like it wants to reach out. All he says though is, “I’m not good at this stuff.” 

Mike rolls his eyes, fixes Kevin with a looks. “Obviously.” 

Kevin doesn’t say anything else, and no one moves. Emily is trying to find some way to break the silence when Jayden does it for her. 

“This is stupid,” he says, and everyone turns to look at him. He has his arms crossed, and he’s leaning his head against the wall. He turns his gaze to Mia. “You were right. We can’t stop ourselves from feeling things. And we shouldn’t have to.” He looks at Kevin and Mike, and then meaningfully back behind him, at Antonio. “People who love each other should just be together. No matter their circumstances.” 

Everyone stares, Antonio’s mouth opens, closes, uncertain. Finally, Jayden stands, walks back out towards the courtyard without another word. Antonio looks back at them for a split second, looking like a shocked fish. Emily makes a little motion with her hands, mouths “go” and then he’s bolting after Jayden. 

Emily turns back to Mia, who looks smug. She goes over to sit beside her, wraps an arm around her shoulders, and Mia grabs onto her hand. “I feel kind of invincible,” Mia says to her. “We’ve just helped the whole team come out in one afternoon, fixed all the boys and their feelings, and got Jayden to admit he was wrong. What do you think we should tackle next?” 

Emily laughs, nods her head against Mia’s. 

“World peace?” Mia continues. “My vibrator, maybe?” 

Emily blushes, laughs loudly at the same moment Mike says, “Ohmygod, look, with all due respect, we’re not fixed yet, so could we maybe get a little privacy, please?” 

Mia laughs, looks over at Mike with a glint in her eyes. “I don’t know,” she says coyly, “would you find the sound of my vibrator horribly distracting?” 

Mike and Kevin both turn to gap at them open mouthed, and Emily’s cheeks are so red and she’s giggling so hard that she stands, drags Mia up and mumbles, “Come on, I so need to kiss you,” and then stumble out of the room and down the hall, into Mia’s room, closing the door behind them. 

***

Kevin and Mike stare after Mia and Emily for a long moment, both of their mouths open. Finally, Mike turns back to Kevin with wide eyes, lifts a finger to point back the way they’d gone, then drops it and shakes his head. 

“See?” Mike says, taking a step towards Kevin. “We’re not even the strangest thing going on around here.” 

Kevin shakes his head in awe, looks at Mike. “Clearly.” 

Mike grins at him, watches Kevin’s face soften and takes another step forward. He’s close enough to touch now, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t give Kevin the easy way out no matter how much he wants to kiss him, because he wants Kevin to use his words, dammit. 

He wants Kevin to say something meaningful, something important, but what he ends up saying with a sigh and a hand on his neck is, “I’m a really shitty boyfriend.” 

Mike laughs, looks away, and then steps forward, closing the little space left between them. “And I’m obviously a really bad influence. You never used to curse.” 

Kevin’s mouth moves like it wants to smile, but he doesn’t, not all the way. Mike reaches out, touches Kevin’s fingers with his own, props him on. 

Kevin stares at their hands, barely touching. “Can we,” he starts, and then pauses, looking up at Mike’s face. “I want to be that. Boyfriends,” he clarifies. 

“Good,” Mike says, and he goes ahead and takes Kevin’s hand in his. “Because we already sort of are.” 

Kevin does grin this time. “I’m not saying I’m agreeing to any public displays of affection,” he warns, inching closer to Mike. “But I kind of miss you like crazy.” 

“And,” Mike prods, reaching out to pluck at Kevin’s training uniform with his other hand. 

“And I’m sorry,” Kevin continues, searching Mike’s face. For what, Mike isn’t sure, so he tries to look pleased. “I never meant to say you didn’t care. I was… I was hoping you didn’t,” Kevin says quietly, “because it would make it easier to be away from you.” 

“I wouldn’t have,” Mike breathes, his voice catching when Kevin brings his hand up to cup Mike’s face. He lets himself be drawn into the embrace before he finishes, “started it in the first place if I didn’t care.” 

“I know,” Kevin says, and then he leans in and they’re kissing, and Mike brings a hand up to Kevin’s neck, and it’s so absolutely more awesome than anything they’ve done before this. 

Well, maybe not absolutely, but it feels so good to be back here, in the warmth and familiarity of Kevin’s mouth, where everything feels okay. He had missed it so badly, hadn’t realized how much he needed it, hadn’t realized how much he wanted Kevin until that day in the laundry room. And maybe it’s not going to be forever, Mike knows, but he thinks that maybe it could be, and maybe they could work, really work, and he wants that. He wants it more than anything. Especially now that he knows that Kevin wants it, wants him, too. 

It’s all he can do not to rip Kevin’s shirt off right there and then. 

He hears footsteps, but Kevin doesn’t break away from him, pulls him closer, even, and Mike is already smiling into their kiss when he hears Ji’s voice echo through the house. 

“Why is everyone _kissing_ when they should be _training_?!”

 

 

**Epilogue: Everyone is Gay, and It’s Okay**

They decide as a group that they’re all adults, and what they do in the privacy of their bedrooms is up to them. Which is how on a Tuesday evening they all find themselves moving beds into rooms and combining living spaces with their significant others. 

Jayden arranges it in such a way that there’s an empty room separating each couple, and Kevin thinks that’s a very smart decision. 

He and Mike shove their two twin sized beds together to make one full bed, and while the mattresses will probably occasionally move and there will be a gap, it’ll work for now. They tuck one of Kevin’s blue sheets in to hold the mattresses together, and throw one of Mike’s green ones over top. They don’t bother making the bed because, as Mike says, they have to test it first. 

It tests surprisingly well. It’s a lot more space than they’d been used to, and it’s comfortable, and they spend the afternoon testing it in several different positions until they hear the dinner gong ringing. 

When they come back from dinner, they carry in the last of Mike’s things, the extra dresser, the study desk that Mike uses as a catch-all instead of studying on it, and his collection of assorted ridiculously sporting equipment. Most of that ends up in the closet or under the bed, which they do actually end up making. 

“I still want kids, you know,” Kevin tells Mike casually while they tuck the sheets in around the bed. “Someday.” 

“Mmm,” Mike mumbles, seemingly in agreement. “Is this before or after you win your Olympic gold medal?” 

Kevin grins. “After,” he jokes, and he watches the way Mike looks at him, with mirth and fondness and then shakes his head. “I’m serious, Mike.” 

“I’m sure you are.” Mike says, fluffing his pillow and then placing it on the bed. Then he starts to crawl across it, towards Kevin, and he tugs on Kevin’s light blue button down as he leans into capture Kevin’s mouth. 

Kevin avoids the kiss carefully, which just makes Mike go for his neck instead. “I mean it. I want--” his breath hitches when Mike bites “--everything I can have. It’s all your fault.” 

“Mine?” Mike wonders, fiddling with Kevin’s buttons. “How’s that, now?”

Kevin grins, watches Mike places kisses down his chest, down towards his stomach to kiss him through his pants. “You made me believe I could have it all,” he says, and he runs his hand over the top of Mike’s head as Mike kisses his groin once, twice, then drags his face back up to give Kevin a sappy look. 

Mike straightens, goes back to kissing at Kevin’s throat, and Kevin’s about to give in, about to let Mike do whatever he wants when he asks, “Are you even listening to what I’m saying?” 

Exasperated, Mike pulls back. “Yes, kids, life together, the whole shebang. I love you too, now _kiss_ , or I’ll ruin your pretty shirt.” 

Kevin does kiss him then, hard and strong and fast, just the way Mike likes. He wraps a hand around Mike’s shoulders, lets Mike tug their shirts off, presses himself against him. He listens for the way Mike mumbles Kevin’s name against his ear, presses a kiss against Mike’s fluttering heart, and lets Mike drag him down onto their bed to perform more tests, and he kisses. 

He kisses Mike like it’s all he needs, like it’s the simplest thing he’s ever done, and also like he’s not a _complete_ sap having the best sex of his life. And when Mike comes, taking Kevin with him a moment later, when they’re finished and sticky and curling up for the night, Kevin presses kisses into Mike’s back, wondering how he ever could have not wanted this to begin with. How he ever could have doubted that this was exactly how things were supposed to be. 

He mumbles the words back to Mike, who just smirks and says, “I know” with a smug look. 

And then they kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to say though, how incredibly hard it is to write mature stuff in this season that isn’t Jayden centric, because they do such a good job at making the characters so emotionless most of the time… I have a whole new respect.


End file.
